Fresno State is celebrating Earth Day all week on campus with a series of free, public events on sustainability, leading up to the Earth Day Fair from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Friday, April 4 along Maple Mall.
The fair will include live music from Perch, food, vendors and exhibitors promoting sustainable practices in the community. Exhibitors and vendors include Tree Fresno, Earth Day Fresno, Fresno Water Conservation Program, the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, Raw Fresno, Dusty Buns Bistro, Ooh De Lolli, Verengo Solar and Solar City.
Earth Day events at Fresno State are presented by the Fresno State Sustainability Project and the College of Science and Mathematics. The sustainability project was initially funded by the California State University Campus as a Living Lab Grant.
“A major success of our efforts this year has been to bring together faculty, staff and students from across campus, as well as community organizations, who are all working toward more sustainable use of natural resources — maintaining resources for current needs without compromising future availability,” said Mara Brady, assistant professor in Fresno State’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Brady said more than 800 trees, shrubs and plants were planted on campus, all of which use less water than the grass or plants that were there before, as part of Spring into Service Day on March 22. The new plantings will reduce water usage by as much as 80 percent on those patches of ground, she said.
“These changes are not only good for our environment, they also provide an educational benefit to our campus and the Fresno community and save water and time,” Brady said. “It’s a win-win. We hope to make more lasting changes like this on campus so we can establish ourselves as leaders in the community.”
A student-organized talk on sustainability will be from 7-8:30 p.m. tonight (April 2) in the University Business Center (Room 191) in the Peters Business Building. The talk features published author Nathanael Johnson and Fresno State professors Dr. Mark Somma and Dr. Madhusudan Katti.
From 6-8 p.m. Thursday, April 3, the Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization presents the “Living on One Dollar” documentary about three students living on $1 per day during summer in a rural Guatemalan village.
The week’s events conclude with the CineCulture screening of “Himalaya Song” from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday, April 4 at the Peters Education Center Auditorium (in the Student Recreation Center, west of the Save Mart Center). Parking is relaxed after 4 p.m. on Fridays in the green and yellow lots.
For more information, contact Eddie Hughes, senior editor/writer, at 559.278.4378 or eddieh@csufresno.edu.
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